Today, io9 wrote a blog about "10 Books you Pretend to Have Read." Looking over the list, I realized that, while I've not pretended to read books that I have not actually read, there were several books out there I do need to read. Lists like this are a good way to grasp the history of the genre, see what has changed, and what ideas we are still exploring.

One of the more troublesome things about being a youngster is that you have all the same feelings that grown-ups do, but you don't have names for them yet. Sure, you figure out happy and angry pretty early on. It's some of the others--envy, anxiety, aggravation, desire--to name just a few that give one fits. They're all valid human reactions to the world, but they are hard even for adults to identify when experiencing them.

"Arresting . . . Ms. Kolbert shows in these pages that she can write with elegiac poetry about the vanishing creatures of this planet, but the real power of her book resides in the hard science and historical context she delivers here, documenting the mounting losses that human beings are leaving in their wake." New York TImes review

Heroes come in as many shapes and sizes as there are reasons that they are heroic. This week, Book Hunters want to celebrate the tiniest of the heroes with these reading recommendations for the younger folks (and younger at heart) in our audience.

Title to be discussed: In falling snow by Mary-Rose MacColl. Date of meeting: Tuesday, August 11, 6:30 pm. Summary: "Traveling to France during World War I to bring home her fifteen-year-old brother, who ran away to enlist, Iris, a young Australian nurse, decides to stay in Paris to help establish a field hospital staffed entirely by women."

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